I used to have a favorite banana bread recipe, a tried-and-true … until my kids decided they were sick of it. So, I was on the hunt for a new one when my neighbor Kathy mentioned one that she’d gotten from our other neighbor Chrissie. Well, Chrissie shared an unbelievably delicious flan recipe with me a while ago and so I figured that if she was dolling out another recipe, it couldn’t be bad.

This morning I took to finally using up those bananas that have been browning away on my countertop. It’s a cold day here in Austin this morning with a little bit of flurries (unusual for this area), sleet and rain. So rather than go to the gym, I decided to bake! 🙂 And what a worthwhile sacrifice it was … it’s fantastic! What I love about this recipe is that it doesn’t ask for a lot of sugar. I’m all for less-is-better when it comes to baked goods and sugar. It also asks for stoneground wheat flour and a small portion of white. I didn’t have stoneground on hand but had my King Arthur’s traditional whole wheat and so used that. I bet the stoneground would give it a nice texture, grainy, hearty. One that I’d enjoy, but probably not my girls.

My girlies are in school right now so I’m anxious to hear what they think about it when they get home. If there’s any left!!

UPDATE: My oldest was still home and she wanted some before she took off for school. It didn’t have time to sit and rest/cool before she cut into the pan taking two slices, then Palo Alto had two slices. What’s left of it – very little!! – is still in the baking pan! THAT’s how good it is! They didn’t even give me a chance to take a picture of it for my blog!!

Whole Wheat Banana Bread

1/2 cup butter

3/4 cup brown sugar or raw sugar

1 egg

1 cup unsifted stoneground whole wheat flour

1/2 cup unsifted unbleached white flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon sea salt

1 1/4 cups mashed ripe bananas (two large or three small)

1/4 cup buttermilk or yogurt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Cream the butter and sugar together until very light and creamy. Beat in the egg.

Sift together the whole wheat flour, white flour, baking soda and salt. Combine the bananas and buttermilk, stirring just enough to mix.